The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1887-06-16
CLEVELAND AND THE @. a. r.

THE Emporia NEWS and other rabid
republican papers of Kansas never
weary of bowling about the invitation
extended to the president to visit the
encampment Of the G. A. r. in Sep
tember. The NEWS says: ''If st.
Louis wishes to boom Mr.. Cleveland it
/ is its privilege to do so, but it ought
serious inconvenience of the Graud
Army association In order to stop
| this senseless gable we publish this
morning an article taken from the
Post-Dispatch of Friday last, explicitly
showing that the Grand Army COM
mittee was the first to request Mr..
Cleveland's presence. If any of our
esteemed contemporaries can get
around the facts presented they are at
liberty SO to do.-Kansas City Times.
After carefully reading the article
above referred to from the Post-Dis-
patch, which is quite lengthy, we have
come to the conclusion that it merely
proves the fact that the invitation was
gotten up by the Post-Dispateh, with
the assistance of few G.. A. r. men
and several ex-confederates, who were
acting merely as a subcommittee of
citizens to make arrangements to enter
tain the G.. A. r., and that this was
one of the methods adopted by them
and Tepudiated by the chairman of the
general executive committee, General
ID. p. Grier, who distinctly states in
the article referred to that out of the
entire committee of eighteen who pro-
mulgated this Cleveland invitation,
only eight were members of the G. A.
r., and four of the other ten were ex-
confederates. The whole thing can be
laid at the door of the rebel element of
st. Louis, who hoped to have the old
soldiers play tail to their kite.
The democratic papers place great
stress on the assertion that Cleveland
is the commander-in-chiefo of the army,
and that, therefore, the members of
the G.. A. r. are bound to treat him
with respect. This may be all right
from a democratic point of view, but
from G.. A. Il. point it is not quite
the same. Cleveland, by virtue of his
Office as president, may be at present
the commander of the army, but when
the great struggle for the union was
going on, when the G. A. r. boys were
soldiers, he was not a commander of
any kind-not even of their respect.
And to-day, as they are not now sol
diers, he commands respect from them
only in the same degree as he does
from all other citizens. And when
they meet in commemoration of the
great events in which they took an &C
tive part as against his sympathies, it
i'll becomes either he or his friends to
attempt to make the occasion one in
which he shall take a very prominent
position. Were he once a soldier, or
even the soldiers friend, the case
would be different. For Cleveland's
friends to push his presence on the old
soldiers would be bad policy, even for
him, and we venture to assert that the
vets. will not have a chance to either
hiss him or refuse to be reviewed by
him on that occasion.
But with all this, it should be dis
tinctly understood that it is not be-
cause Cleveland is a democrat that the
G.. A. r. object to his attending what
may be considered a little private pic
mic of their own. Neither is it because
he has vetoed several pension bills
which nearly all think he should have
signed-even the eX-confederates in
congress. But it is because he took so
much pains to go out of the strict line
of his duty in so vetoing these bills, in
asmuch as he treated several cases
which should have appealed to the bet.
ter feeling of any human being
with sneering flippancy, and in
nearly all cases made use
of language calculated to show
his contempt for the wearers OF
the blue, and to put them in a ridicu,
lous light before their countrymen
He seemed to have no conception of the
claim which the veterans have on the
union, nor to understand that the pen.
sion system is not a system of mendi.
cancy but the payment of just debt
And this from q man who had passed
his majority when the war broke out
who was, during the struggle, at the
age when the blood is supposed to be
warm and patriotic, and who hired a
substitute.
On this subject the Democrat
has the following:
The fact is not to he denied that the
present administration hts system
atically Disseminated against tile
union soldiers. That is what dem
ocratic administration is for, it may be
granted; but it does not follow that
the Grand Army of the Republic is
bound to wave its cherished banner
and ''toss high its ready caps in air.
for the special Qualification of Presi-
dent Cleveland. To show proper re-
spect for the exalted office which he
holds is one thing; to lionize him as an
individual is another and very different
thing, and the veterans have a perfect
right to refuse that sort of service.
u.